Russian intelligence general to advise SAP's CIS branch

On 13 February, Russian news agency RBK made known that former head of the Federal Security Service's Cyber Security Centre, Vladimir Skorik, is now advising the director of SAP's regional branch for the Community of Independent States (CIS). RBK was able to confirm Skorik had been working at the German software company at least since June 2017. This move by Europe's biggest software company, likely aimed at increasing regional sales, is raising cyber security concerns with regard to the sensitive information SAP could be sharing with Russia.

Skorik's role with the company is believed to be that of facilitating its cooperation with the public sector and obtaining security certifications for its product to be sold to law enforcement agencies. This, however, is likely to be regarded negatively by the US, especially after in January 2018 it was revealed that SAP (alongside other software companies like Symantec and McAfee), previously let Russian security services look for vulnerabilities in the source codes of the same software products they provide to US agencies and departments like NASA, Pentagon, State Department, etc. This, in turn, raises the possibility for the security vulnerabilities discovered by the Russians to be used by their hackers against the US or European countries.